MEM and CLEAN Imaging of VLBA Polarisation Observations of Compact Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR

This paper compares the Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) and CLEAN techniques for radio interferometry imaging, demonstrating MEM's higher resolution in polarisation imaging of Active Galactic Nuclei using VLBA data.

Contribution

It applies and evaluates MEM for polarisation imaging in VLBA observations, highlighting its advantages over traditional CLEAN methods.

Findings

MEM provides higher resolution images than CLEAN.

MEM is effective for polarisation imaging of AGN.

Application to VLBA data demonstrates MEM's potential benefits.

Abstract

The Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) for the deconvolution of radio interferometry images is mathematically well based and presents a number of advantages over the usual CLEAN deconvolution, such as appreciably higher resolution. The application of MEM for polarisation imaging remains relatively little studied. CLEAN and MEM intensity and polarisation techniques are discussed in application to recently obtained 18cm VLBA polarisation data for a sample of Active Galactic Nuclei.